How to extinguish employee burnout

Burnout is on the rise. Grant­ed, it’s hard­ly a new phe­nom­e­non. But when you fac­tor in the small mat­ter of a glob­al pan­dem­ic and the impact of work­ing from home (WFH) on our abil­i­ty to switch off, it’s lit­tle won­der that pro­fes­sion­als are men­tal­ly exhaust­ed like nev­er before.

Employ­ment review spe­cial­ist Glass­door has report­ed a 128% jump in ref­er­ences to “burnout” in com­pa­ny feed­back shared since April 2021. Reviews relat­ing to the pro­fes­sion­al sec­tor – includ­ing tech­nol­o­gy, busi­ness ser­vices and finance – have seen the high­est usage of the term, account­ing for 40% of all reviews this year that ref­er­ence burnout. 

“Many employ­ees have been able to ‘grin and bear’ the impact of Covid-19 through 2020, but the one-year anniver­sary has proven to be a tip­ping point,” says Jill Cot­ton, careers advice expert at Glass­door. “They’re think­ing again about their home and work lives, and we’re see­ing UK job vacan­cies reach a record high due to the ‘Great Res­ig­na­tion’.”

Covid-19 aside, a com­bi­na­tion of over-work and under-rest is still play­ing its part.

“There’s a grave dan­ger in the glam­ouri­sa­tion of over­work­ing,” says Ruth Cor­nish, co-founder and direc­tor of HR Inde­pen­dents (HRi) and chief peo­ple offi­cer for Amelore. “For­go­ing lunch breaks and week­ends in favour of work is por­trayed as a sign of pas­sion, and chain­ing one­self to a desk until the ear­ly hours is seen as com­mit­ment. Wear­ing burnout as a badge of hon­our is as dan­ger­ous for the indi­vid­ual as it is for the com­pa­ny.”

Burnout and businesses

Accord­ing to UK Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive research pub­lished in Novem­ber 2020, 828,000 work­ers were affect­ed by work-relat­ed stress, depres­sion or anx­i­ety between 2019 and 2020, with 17.9 mil­lion work­ing days lost as a result. 

In short, burnout is as dam­ag­ing to busi­ness­es as it is to the staff affect­ed, with UK employ­ers foot­ing a col­lec­tive bill worth bil­lions each year as a result. 

Robert Orde­v­er is MD at work­place cul­ture spe­cial­ist O.C. Tan­ner Europe. Recent research from the organ­i­sa­tion found the pan­dem­ic has con­tributed to a 15% glob­al rise in burnout, increas­ing to a jaw-drop­ping 81% in “non-thriv­ing” com­pa­ny cul­tures.

“Frankly, even if it wasn’t the right thing to do, find­ing ways to pre­vent burnout is imper­a­tive to run­ning a thriv­ing busi­ness,” says Orde­v­er, not­ing that his company’s 2020 Glob­al Cul­ture Report found that even mild burnout caus­es a 220% decrease in the prob­a­bil­i­ty of high­ly engaged employ­ees and a 247% decrease in the prob­a­bil­i­ty of great work. 

A Men­tal Health UK study found that just 23% of work­ers are aware of the sup­port their organ­i­sa­tion offers to tack­le burnout. It’s vital that staff know they have your back­ing. 

At O.C. Tan­ner, it’s an open con­ver­sa­tion. “We focus on edu­ca­tion and main­tain­ing aware­ness of the risk of burnout,” says Orde­v­er. “The foun­da­tion of our strat­e­gy is around our peo­ple and we artic­u­late this by ask­ing each of them to ‘watch out, speak up and work safe­ly’. We each take col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty for the well­be­ing of our­selves and each oth­er.”

An upfront approach is vital, agrees Cor­nish. “Talk­ing about the con­cept of burnout, how it presents itself in both team mem­bers and C‑suite, and agree­ing on sup­port for staff is cru­cial.”

Warning signs

While symp­toms vary from per­son to per­son, com­mon signs of burnout include weari­ness, a neg­a­tive out­look and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. In 2019 it was recog­nised by the WHO as an “occu­pa­tion­al phe­nom­e­non”. 

Dominic McGre­gor found him­self burnt out in sum­mer 2015, hav­ing giv­en his all to Social Chain, the dig­i­tal start­up he co-found­ed, an excit­ing “rock­et­ship” that expe­ri­enced “crazy-fast growth”. 

McGre­gor only realised he was burnt out when some­body else point­ed it out to him. “Every­thing was get­ting on top of me but I didn’t even notice,” he recalls. “It crept up on me. To recov­er, I had to either stop work­ing or stop par­ty­ing – and I wouldn’t stop work­ing. I quit the par­ty lifestyle and focused my spare time on rest.”

McGre­gor recent­ly launched his lat­est ven­ture, Fear­less Adven­tures, which invests in entre­pre­neur-led ecom­merce busi­ness­es. “My co-founders and I are imple­ment­ing a num­ber of things to pre­vent burnout, from a com­plete­ly trans­par­ent struc­ture to encour­ag­ing reg­u­lar breaks and hol­i­days,” he says. “We want to give our team the con­fi­dence to switch off, rest and re-ener­gise.” 

McGre­gor believes it’s cru­cial for senior man­age­ment to look out for staff and ensure that they’re not “flam­ing out”, adding: “They should care about their team’s men­tal health and show that their well­be­ing is as impor­tant as their per­for­mance.”

One flame at a time

If it becomes appar­ent that a mem­ber of your team has burnout, assess what can be done to help them. 

“Remove any unnec­es­sary caus­es of stress,” sug­gests Cor­nish. “Redis­trib­ute work­loads where nec­es­sary and encour­age the indi­vid­ual to make use of annu­al leave. If need be, inves­ti­gate and resolve any con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tors, such as bul­ly­ing or harass­ment. Pro­vide access to med­ical sup­port, such as an Employ­ee Assis­tance Pro­gramme.”

Swap­ping a worka­holic cul­ture for one that val­ues rest and recharg­ing can help keep the burnout risk under con­trol. Remind staff to step away from their desks through­out the day, for exam­ple, even if just for a five-minute stroll; reg­u­lar breaks are proven to reduce the risk of stress and depres­sion, as well as improv­ing every­thing from pro­duc­tiv­i­ty to focus.

Sim­i­lar­ly, it’s crit­i­cal to set bound­aries. Encour­age staff to make the most of leave. Turn off the ping of email noti­fi­ca­tions and oth­er forms of out-of-hours con­tact to help cre­ate a dis­tinct sep­a­ra­tion between work life and home life, even if they’re still WFH. 

“The most impor­tant thing we do to pre­vent burnout at O.C. Tan­ner is set clear expec­ta­tions,” says Orde­v­er. “We work hard to ensure that extend­ed hours, exces­sive work­loads and sus­tained pres­sures are sim­ply not the norm.”